Solar energy for school sends green message

SHELBY -- The ROTHBURY festival promoters are furthering the environmental theme of their camp-in music festival with an installation of solar panels on Shelby High School for the purposes of "education and awareness."

Dana McGrew

The festival and its co-sponsors -- RE:VOLVE Apparel, Black Rock Solar and Grand Rapids-based Bauer Power -- are putting up at least 36 Sharp photovoltaic solar cells on the roof of the high school. If those attending the festival purchase a large number of $3 "green tickets," the school will receive additional solar panels.

ROTHBURY and its sponsors have committed to a minimum of $50,000 for the installation, but Shelby Schools Superintendent Dana McGrew said the donated installation and development time of the sponsors significantly increases the investment made into the schools.

"There are a lot of people making this happen," McGrew said as the solar project was highlighted by the festival promoters Wednesday afternoon. "This is just a beginning of what the festival should make happen. The solar panels will be hooked into our computers so students can monitor what is being generated."

The solar installation should generate 800-1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a month for a building that installers estimate would use 30,000-50,000 kilowatt hours a month. The solar panels, with a life expectancy of 40 years, are not offsetting a lot of the high school's electrical needs but they are making a statement about what can be accomplished with solar power in Michigan.

Mark Bauer

"This is all about education and awareness," said Mark Bauer, owner of Bauer Power, which has contributed its installation of the high school solar panels to further the ROTHBURY environmental and alternative energy theme. "We have gotten used to the inefficient use of cheap energy in the United States. We've had it and we've used it. But that tide is changing today."

Michigan is better known for its potential in wind power than solar -- West Michigan is one of America's cloudiest areas on average -- but Bauer said that might not be a roadblock.

Michigan averages three and a half hours of sunshine a day over the course of the four seasons in a year, Bauer said. Germany, which has a more advanced solar power development than the United States, has 30 minutes less sun per day on average than Michigan, he said.

Black Rock Solar is a non-profit solar installation company that has joined forces with festival promoters to bring the solar installation to Shelby High School. The San Francisco-area advocacy group has worked mostly on putting solar panels on public buildings in Nevada because of a lucrative cash-rebate program in that state, said Black Rock's Gary Sauer. This is the first Black Rock solar system in Michigan.

Black Rock was brought into the ROTHBURY event through the festival's "greening chief," Sarah Haynes of the Spitfire Agency. The Mill Valley, Calif., environmental consulting agency has been working for a year with festival organizers to make sure the festival is as friendly to the environment as possible, Haynes said.

Besides the solar donation, ROTHBURY will make contributions to wind-energy developments through the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. Bonneville tried to find a wind-energy development to assist in Michigan but the wind industry has been thwarted by a lack of state policies supporting alternative energy, Haynes said.

The ROTHBURY contribution will help a Minnesota wind project, she said.